


Only in Dreams

by RhetoricFemme



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Death, F/M, I don't even know where to begin, aged up character, enchanted portraits, love after death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 07:54:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12361077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhetoricFemme/pseuds/RhetoricFemme
Summary: A decade has gone by since the Battle of Hogwarts, and it's all anyone can try and do to move on.Sometimes, however, there is simply no letting go.





	Only in Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> So... I have this head canon where Fred and George set aside funds so that if either of them dies, they can have a portrait made. Not an _enchanted_ portrait, exactly... But a haunted one. A haunted, enchanted portrait. They have their reasons.
> 
> This is a little oneshot based off of that head canon.

It’s been ten years at this point.

Ten years since the first culmination of all that pain.

Ten years since they’d begun picking up whatever pieces they could find.

Ten years since anyone dare to start living something other than day-by-day.

And yet by that point, all anyone could handle was the terrifying, but feasible increment of that very same day-by-day.

A decade had gone by since she’d last inhaled that spiced, earthy musk that emanated from him. How he’d somehow managed to come off as so incredibly serious while being so playful. But in this new dream of hers, Hermione feels as if she’d buried herself in that scent only yesterday.

Her heart aches now, though it doesn’t negate the heat pooling between her thighs, or the way she remembers the curious press of his thumb into the softest places across her skin.

Hermione swears she can hear his placid baritone humming against her ear, thanking her for the permission her wandering hands have already granted. The sudden, unsuspecting inhale from a man whose sharp mind and penchant for jokes allows one to assume he already knows everything.

But really, it’s the unprejudiced hand of death that is required to gain entrance into Hermione’s dreams; where Fred takes his solace now. It’s she who now takes from him, though it’s nothing Fred never wanted to give.

It’s bittersweet when he responds in kind, taking the road far less traveled, locating the place and touch necessary for a silent lover to cry skyward for her stolen promises of happily ever after.

She wakes alone. The grounded, stubborn part of Hermione demands she spread out and occupy the entirety of this too-big bed. After all, it’s only ever belonged to her.

Very well, then.

Rising before the sun, she readies for another day, retreating to the banned books that aid her not from her ministry office, but from the haphazard desk of her private study.

Hermione has her own wall of photographs; the inhabitants of enchanted portraits sleep on quietly alongside the still smiles of her muggle family and friends. It’s all the same, she thinks. It all serves as a reminder of what is truly important in this world.

On the desk she keeps an image of Crookshanks, in all his cuddly, curmudgeony glory. Beside his frame are even more reminders of her youth; hugs and smiles despite torn clothes and purple bags beneath their eyes.

She lets go of an unintended sigh.

_Right. Work, then._

It’s easy enough to lose herself to the sound of solid wood desk drawers, and the slow turn of ancient, brittle pages, and she only stops when she hears laughter that has long since been gone.

Silencing herself to memories, prepared to give in, she takes a moment to indulge once again when the sound erupts even clearer.

_No. That can’t be. It isn’t him._

Hermione closes her eyes with the whispered sing-song of her name; a request for her undivided attention after so many years gone by.

Not impossible, she knows, but after ten years? After all this time?

It isn’t fair, she sighs, but what ever is?

“ ‘mione… You’re looking for an ache in your head if you keep squeezin’ your eyes shut like that.”

How badly she wants this. Even so, it’s never ceased hurting to say his name.

“ ‘mione.”

“ _Fred?_ ”

There he is. That portrait she never could keep anywhere other than the center of her desk. Twenty years old forever, an image of somber pleasure at his brother’s wedding.

There had been no way to know in the moment she’d asked him to stand still for a snapshot, though certainly every person might have feared or suspected. Any moment might be the last.

“Damn it all, Frederick!” She accuses, choked laughter caught amid sobs. “It was you!”

Tear-stained hands move away from her face, and she stares incredulously at the now proud smirk that beams from the photo.

“Believe me.” He tells her, charm and morose dancing his voice. “It was my pleasure.”

Again, she laughs despite every fact and memory that causes her to cry.

It’s far from ideal, and it hurts like hell. But this is as close as she’ll ever get to perfect.


End file.
